Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Apr 5, 2013

With so many people freaking out about the demise of Google Reader, and realizing that I hadn’t ever really written about the program I use, I thought it was time to introduce it to you. I’m a standalone guy instead of having everything in my browser so this might not be what some of you want. But I love it so it gets some love publicly now.

Feedreader is basically a program that allows you to track any RSS feeds you want, categorize them, and determine how you want to view them. I use the standalone product as I mentioned before but they also have a browser version as well as some other versions of the main product, but I can’t tell you anything about those.

The first image is exactly what the program looks like when you open it (to enlarge you’ll have to click on it, then when it opens again click again and it’ll be much bigger & easy to see). You see that I have my categories there on the left, and I’m highlighting one of the articles from one of my other blogs just as an example. This is only a reader; if you’re subscribing to blogs you have to click on the link at the top of the article and it’ll pull up a browser so you can comment on it.

The second image shows you how you can add feeds to the program. However, an easier way to do it is to click on the RSS feed on the blog or website and the program will automatically open up and allow you to add the link to it. Once it adds the link then you can go to the left and change the name or move it into a new category.

The final image shows you one of my categories, which I call Friends. Everyone in this category is a close friend, as opposed to a blogging friend, thus the only person in here that doesn’t live in the states, but I count him as a close friend after so many years, is our buddy Sire, and 3 blogs on this list are his. lol

The way you move links around is you open up a category, go to the link, hold your left mouse button down and drag it to where you want it in that category. You hold it as far to the left as you can so that if you want to alphabetize things, which I do for all my other categories, it’s easy to do. On this list you’ll see I have all my blogs at the top, which I do to make sure everything is always working properly.

Anyway, I love this thing and I think it’s a great alternative for those who still want to track RSS feeds. I don’t know if they have a mobile version, as truthfully I don’t want to read feeds on my smartphone so I’m not worrying about that. Check out the site above and you might find what you need there.

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on May 21, 2010

You know, it’s possible that this is one of those posts I really don’t have to do, but something is telling me that I need to make sure. What’s prompting it is that lately more than half of the spam I get asks the question “how do I subscribe to your feed.” As simple as it seems, after a meeting I had last Friday I realized that many people really aren’t all that internet savvy, and they might not even know what a feed is to know how to subscribe to it, or even where. Hence, this post. For the rest of you who already know this… y’all don’t have to read this, unless you want to see if I miss something.

You see that symbol to the right? Any time you see that symbol it means that particular website or post has what’s known as RSS, or Really Simple Syndication (sometimes known as Rich Site Summary) feed. In essence, it means you can follow certain websites or blogs that have new content with some kind of regularity in a place other than having to visit that website. You can subscribe to the feed by clicking on that orange button whenever you see it and read it whenever you want to somewhere else. I use a program called Feedreader, which is independent of a browser, and a lot of people use Google Reader, which uses the browser, but groups all the feeds in one place. There are plenty of other options as well.

On websites, you might see that orange symbol in many different places, and sometimes it depends on the browser you’re using. On Firefox, you’ll see that little symbol to the far right of the address bar. On IE 8, you’ll see that symbol on the right next to the home button on the toolbar. On some sites you’ll see that symbol elsewhere, and it might not be the orange symbol. Seems that some sites will change the color of the symbol. If you look on my blog, you see that symbol in the far right column, and underneath that you can decide to subscribe by email, which other sites also. This means you’ll get any blog posts from me through email instead of a reader; many people like that instead. Other sites will do this as well.

That’s pretty much all it takes for RSS subscriptions. And those of us who blog love when people subscribe, as we want more people to read what we have to say. I subscribe to many blogs and news sites, more than 200, although I think it might be time to pare down my list some. We’ll see if I get to that. Any questions?

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jun 2, 2009

This isn’t usually my type of post, but I figured it’s time to change up some. Usually when I have a post with lots of links, they’re my own links. This time, I’m going to put up 9 links to other people’s content, as I finally had some time to get through the posts for people I follow in my Feedreader program. These links might feel like they’re all over the place, but hey, it’s me; you wouldn’t expect anything less.

First, if you use Firefox, you’re going to love this one. It’s called 10 Firefox Hacks In about:config, and it’s on a blog called Tech Republic. I used the ones to increase the speed of my blog and a couple others; good stuff.

Second, our friend Lynn Terry of Clicknewz wrote a great piece called The Squeeze Page Method, which fully explains what a squeeze page is, and why she doesn’t usually like going that route, which I fully agree with.

Third, a wonderful post from our friend Marelisa of Abundance blog titled 54 Tips For Writers, From Writers, where she posts tips given by famous writers. You’ll be able to tell that she really put a lot of work into this one.

Fourth, we all probably ask if Darren Rowse of Problogger really needs more publicity from anyone, but heck, you can’t stop progress. In this case, he wrote a post titled Warning: Do You Recognize These 21 Blogging Mistakes?, and I’m betting you’ll see many that you’re making on this list. I’ll own up to it, there’s many I’m doing that’s on this list.

Fifth, Ryan McLean, blog of the same name, wrote a post titled The Dark Side Of Starting An Internet Business, and though it’s pretty good, I’ll admit that its appeal to me has to do with its Star Wars references.

Sixth, I think Willie Crawford has probably written his best blog post here, titled A Beginner’s Guide To Making Money With Google AdSense. I’ve seen similar stuff, but this one, I believe, will help many of you who still don’t quite get the power of making money through Adsense.

Seventh, this is definitely something a little bit different. It’s on a blog called Leader Business, and the titled of the post is No Whiners!. However, the beauty of the post is the form; click on it for a larger version, then print a couple out; funny stuff.

Eighth, from a blog oddly called Blogging Without A Blog, we have this post titled The Secret Is Out – Our Blog Posts Are Not Being Read, and it’s pretty much self explanatory, though she also talks about people who only skim a post before responding, so they never quite get what the post is really about.

Ninth, once again something different, as it’s two short yet funny videos. The blog is called Power Maxx Blog, and the post is titled The Dark Knight Meets Superman, which begs the question “What if Superman was a jerk?” You’ll laugh at these,… I hope.

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 11, 2008

I was reading this post on Daily Blog Tips called 50 Simple Ways To Gain RSS Subscribers, and one of 50 points, number 5 to be more specific, said this: Write a post asking for people to subscribe.

I had to think about it, and truthfully, I don’t think I’ve ever written a post requesting that people subscribe to any of my feeds. I did write this post on what RSS feeds were, with a video no less, and mentioned that it would be nice if people subscribed to my feed, but I’ve never come right out and asked for it.

So I’m doing it now. For those readers who have no idea what RSS stands for, I recommend you click on the link I just gave you and watch the video I posted, which breaks it down nicely. For everyone else, though I can’t believe I’d have to tell you why it’s a good idea to subscribe to my feeds, of all things, well, y’all see how often I tend to write. I’d hate for you to miss any of my posts, especially the really poignant and funny ones, just because you happened to show up late. The front page only holds so many posts, after all, and some of my posts only stay on the main page 3 or 4 days. And, I’ve given people two ways to subscribe to the feeds, the regular way or by email. Now, the regular way offers different feed readers, one that can be put right into Firefox with an add-on called Sage. Of course there’s always Google Reader, which a lot of people like, and I’m a major advocate of Feedreader, the program I use because it’s not dependent upon browsers. There are many other programs, obviously, but I think these three get it done best.

Subscribe to my feed! Subscribe to my feed! Subscribe to my feed! Okay, now I’ve said it, and I’ve written it. And, by the way, this post now has me using 8 of the top 10 recommendations. That’s never a bad place to be.

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 1, 2008

You know, I feel like an idiot right now. I’ve been wondering why there’s so few people who have subscribed to my feeds, and it kind of hit me this evening.

I use Firefox, as you probably know, and on Firefox, to subscribe to a feed, all one has to do is click on the little symbol in the top right corner of the address bar and voile, there you are. I’ve known this for years. What I’m not sure of is if everyone else who uses Firefox knows the same thing, or whether it comes up the same way on any other browsers.

My bet is no, but that’s besides the point. I had been thinking that I had the links prominently posted on this blog and my other blog so people could subscribe easily enough if they so chose. I’ve been reading many other blogs that talk about it all the time, and just thought I was all set.

Until this evening, when I was, for whatever reason, encouraged by myself to take a look; nope, nothing there. Ugh! So now, if you look to the immediate right, you’ll see two feeds that can be subscribed to. One is the regular feed that comes with the WordPress blog. The other is the Feedreader feed, which, I guess, an overwhelming number of people use instead. Either way, I have now learned how to track all of my feeds since I picked up the idea to download a plugin called the Feedsmith plugin from this post by John Chow, who just broke 29,000 RSS readers.

About

My name is Mitch Mitchell and I'm Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on writing, blogging social media, internet marketing, and many other things. You never know what I'll write about here. So keep coming back, read, comment, enjoy, and buy something if the moment hits you! ;-)